Sunday at the Masters

What a strange turn of events at the Masters, and the strange reaction to what happened to Tiger in Saturday’s round. Tiger, on that interesting but daunting fifteenth hole, took an improper drop after his third shot into the green struck the flagstick and rebounded into the water. Some (mostly Tiger haters) would say it was only just after all the lucky breaks Tiger has gotten over the years. Some (mostly Tiger haters) would say he purposely cheated and should have been disqualified from further play, and even if there was a rule that allowed him to continue without disqualification, he should have manned up and withdrawn. How to explain why he purposely dropped his ball about six feet in back of where he’d hit the previous shot into the water. He’s just seen what very likely would have been a birdie turn into what very easily could have been a double bogey. He, without thinking it through, took a drop two paces directly behind his previous shot, thinking, without really thinking it through, that he could have if he’d wanted gone as far back on that line as he wanted. Who knows what thoughts would be stirring around in his head after that awful break when his shot hit the flagstick. In any case, it wasn’t as though he purposely cheated to gain an advantage. I mean, what advantage did he gain by dropping two steps back? None. Did he purposely cheat like the unethical duffer who uses his foot to kick his ball out of a bush? No. Did he gracefully accept his two-stroke penalty? Yes. Should he have been disqualified because he signed his card for a wrong score when he didn’t even hear about the penalty until way past the card-signing? No. That would be taking the rules to a stupid level, and many of the game’s rules are already at the stupid level. Should tv viewers be arbiters of rules violations? I remember Craig Stadler’s “building a stance” infraction when he put a towel on the ground for a shot he took from his knees. Stupid. I remember when Paul Azinger, standing in a water hazard, unconsciously pushed a rock aside as he prepared for a shot, two stroke penalty. Stupid. I remember when Roberto De Vincenzo in the 1968 Masters signed a card that was one stroke higher than he’d actually shot, denying him a spot in a playoff with Bob Goalby, and this at a time when television and all the talking heads in the announcers booths were keeping track of his score. Nope, sorry, Roberto. And Roberto said, “What a stupid I am to be wrong here.” Yep, that’s the key word here—“stupid.” How about a sports analogy: a baseball player in the bottom of the ninth slides into home plate with the winning run. Later, the umpires , in reviewing the video, see that he never touched the plate. So they take away the run and award the victory to the other team and tell the player that he’s being disqualified from playing in the next game. There you go: STUPID. I can’t wait to hear what the talking heads have to say on this, the eve of the final day at the 2013 Masters.